One million volts can charge through its metal frame countless times per storm

When lightning comes to Sydney, the city's tallest tower is the first port of call.

As Tuesday night's storm wreaked havoc across Sydney, some of the most extraordinary images to emerge were those of bolts arcing across the sky from Milsons Point to the Sydney Tower, unofficially known as Centrepoint Tower.

"The most visual thing is you're looking straight into the storm, you're on the same level as the horizon, so you're seeing the points at which the lightning is striking," said Troy Parry, the general manager of Sydney Tower Dining.

"As the clouds roll in and the restaurant revolves, you move from clear skies to an ominous storm, it's quite spectacular," Mr Parry said.

The view from Sydney Tower as the storm rolled in

Unfortunately for the rest of us, snapshots taken at the moment lightning hit the tower did not turn out, because the bright light whited out the photographs.

As the diners looked out over the Sydney skyline, most were unaware that thousands of volts were striking the top of the tower only metres above them.

"It was only when I saw the picture myself on the Herald's website that I realised how heavy the strikes were," Mr Parry said.

Trevor Cruncorn, who installed the lightning rod on Sydney Tower in 1998, said he was not surprised that people inside the tower would not have noticed the lightning striking the top of the building.

"It's a high energy, extremely fast event; you're talking a micro-second. The most you might see is a flicker of the lights if you're in the right place."

For those outside the tower, what they saw were multiple simultaneous strikes on the lightning rod that lasted only three nanoseconds each.

They all converged to create what lightning gurus call "pulses" - a phenomenon that our eyes see as enormous whips of white flashing across the sky and colliding with conductors.